


Unremembered

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, Parent AU, au where Anne Travers is actually Two and Jamie's daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 13:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10492125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Two and Jamie take their daughter to Scotland for her birthday, and have an impossible encounter with someone very familiar.





	

The bustling crowd was far too noisy and chaotic to possibly locate one lone toddler, but that hardly stopped Jamie from trying. If they lost her – he could not allow himself to even consider that. And now the Doctor was approaching, looking expectant, and he had no idea how to break it to him that he’d gone and lost their child – and in the centre of Glasgow, no less. He had always had a healthy distrust of the lowlands, and now, more than ever, it seemed justified.

“Anne?” he hissed, hoping beyond hope that she could hear him, that they could head back to the TARDIS and the Doctor need be none the wiser. “Anne, can ye hear me?”

“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked, frowning, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. It took him a moment to register their daughter’s absence. “Where’s Anne?”

“She -” Jamie looked around desperately, hoping that she had heard the Doctor’s approach and was coming looking for him. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?” The Doctor’s eyes widened in alarm. “What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean that your cheeky wee lassie ran off ten minutes ago, and I havenae seen her since.” Jamie scrubbed a hand over his face. “I cannae make her hear me, either.”

To his surprise, the Doctor simply sighed heavily and shook his head. “Just like her dad.”

“Hey! I dinnae wander off -” The Doctor had already started to move away, calling out for Anne. “She can’t have gone far, Jamie said, taking the Doctor’s hand and letting himself be dragged along behind him. “She’s only wee, she cannae have – Anne!”

The Doctor turned to look at the sound of their daughter’s name, his gaze alighting on her as she approached, hand in hand with a stranger. When she saw them watching her, she slipped out of the stranger’s grasp and ran towards them, Jamie kneeling down to pick her up.

“Where’ve ye been?” he scolded her gently. “Your father and I have been looking everywhere for ye. You had us worried, wee one.”

“I take it you were looking for her?” the stranger asked. She seemed somewhat familiar, up close, and Jamie tried to think where he could have seen her before. Dark hair, a little taller than him, dressed fairly plainly. She could have been anyone.

“Yes, thank you.” The Doctor shook her hand enthusiastically.

“She didn’t go far, luckily,” the stranger said. Jamie found himself unable to concentrate on the conversation. She seemed so very familiar – but when could he possibly have met her? “Cheeky lass.” Jamie’s attention snapped back to them at that. She couldn’t possibly know – no, it was impossible. “Well, look after her. I’d hate for you to lose her!”

“Dinnae worry about that,” Jamie put in. “We’ll take good care of her.”

“I’m sure.” She smiled at them for a moment. “Is she your daughter?”

“Yes, she is,” the Doctor replied. “That’s…” He glanced around at their surroundings again, eyes catching on the date on a nearby poster. 25th May, 1968. “That’s rather forward-thinking of you.”

“Well, I’d like to think I’m a forward-thinking woman. Perhaps my parents helped there.”

“Yes, ah, quite.” The Doctor reached over to tousle Anne’s hair gently. “Well, we’re very grateful to you for finding her – what was your name?”

When they looked up from Anne, the stranger had gone, vanished back into the crowd. Jamie simply shrugged to the Doctor, reaching over to take his hand again.

“Shall we take her back tae the TARDIS, then?”

 

“Yes, I think we should,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “We don’t want her getting into any more trouble.” He paused for a moment. “Or you, for that matter!”

“Och, wheesht ye.”

Had the stranger followed them, she would have seen the little family disappear inside a police box that seemed much too small for them. She would have seen it wheeze, fade in and out of view for a moment, and finally vanish for good, leaving only a few newspapers blowing in its wake. She would have peered at them – some sensationalist publication reporting on supposed hysteria in London and a mysterious fog descending over the city – and dismissed it as being of no consequence to her. She would have walked away feeling strangely unfulfilled, as if she had lost something she had no memory of having in the first place.

But Anne Travers was already gone.


End file.
